Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 3.djvu/150

178 was at this time, as may readily be supposed, a mass of confusion, which to reduce to any thing like order was little less than an Herculean task. Added to this, the building of the university was yet unfinished, and every possible inconvenience opposed the duties of the librarian. Still the labours of Dr Duncan were incessant. He was then appointed one of the commissioners for superintending the completion of the building of the college; and the services which in both capacities he rendered to the public, cannot be too highly estimated.

Having officiated for his father and Dr Rutherford in the clinical wards of the royal infirmary during the winter of 1817-18 and the summer of 1818, he published at the end of that year reports of his practice, for the purpose of preserving a faithful record of the epidemic, which at that time spread its ravages through Edinburgh. His labours did not go unrewarded. In 1819, the patrons of the university appointed him joint professor with his father in the chair of the theory of medicine. His skill as a lecturer on physiology was duly estimated by his pupils; but he did not retain this office long, for in 1821, Dr Home being translated to the chair of the practice of physic, he was elected in his place professor of materia medica and pharmacy. It is worthy of observation, that so highly were the qualifications of Dr Duncan appreciated, and so obviously did they entitle him to this honour, that when it was understood that he had come forward as a candidate, no person ventured to compete with him for the vacated chair. He commenced his lectures at considerable disadvantage, being at the time in ill health, owing to an accident he had recently met with; but his abilities as a lecturer, and his profound knowledge of materia medica. with all its collateral branches being well known, attracted crowds to his class, among whom no individual can fail to remember how amply his expectations were redeemed. In the discharge of his duties as a professor, he laboured most conscientiously, sacrificing his own comforts and health for the instruction of his pupils. During this season and indeed ever after, says one who had every opportunity of knowing his domestic habits, "he was often seated at his desk at three in the morning, for his lectures underwent a continual course of additions and improvements." When, by the tender solicitude of his own relatives, he was often entreated to relax his incessant toils, and told that surely his task must be finished, he would reply, that to medical knowledge there was no end, and that his labours must be therefore infinite ; and so truly they were, for it was one of the peculiar traits of his character to be ever investigating, which he did with unwearied patience, every new improvement and every new discovery that was announced in this country or on the continent His lectures on materia medica were most comprehensive and profound, and attracted so great a number of students to his class that the expectations which had been formed of the good which the university would derive from his promotion were amply fulfilled. He discharged the duties of this professorship with unwearied zeal and assiduity for eleven years. We have now arrived at the saddest period of his life. His constitution was never strong. It was constantly preyed upon by the exertions of an over-active mind, which allowed itself no repose. Had he been less solicitous about the discharge of his duties and less zealous in the pursuit of science, his health might have been invigorated and his life prolonged. But there was that disparity between the powers and energies of his mind, and the limited vigour of his body, which generally proves fatal to men of superior attainments. He had for years toiled incessantly, bearing up against the consciousness of ill health and physical suffering. His anxiety to discharge his duties, indeed, absorbed every other consideration, and prompted him to endure until endurance itself could no longer obey its own high resolves. His strength, which had been severely impaired by an attack of fever in 1827,